Friday 10 March 2023

As the UK emerges from the post-pandemic and Brexit landscape, the impact of global events has rippled through the immigration system – this is seen in the latest data sets released by the Home Office. We analyse the latest quarterly immigration statistics for the year ending December 2022.

Overview

The Home Office granted 2,836,490 visas in 2022 – 11% fewer or -335,239 than pre-pandemic grants of leave in 2019. The breakdown of categories is as follows:

• Visit visas – 49%
• Study visas – 22%
• Work visas – 15% (267,670, +95% from 2019)
• Family visas – 3%
• Other reasons – 11%, including Ukraine Schemes and BN(O) route

Of note, grants for Skilled Worker and Health and Care Worker visas represented more than half of all work visas granted in 2022, with Indian nationals comprising the highest nationality granted on both visa routes.

New work routes

The Global Business Mobility (GBM) route provides businesses with a flexible tool to meet fluctuating global mobility needs, from transferring specialist workers to assist with temporary assignments to allowing individuals with high-value UK contracts to fulfil services. However, except for the Senior of Specialist Worker visa, which replaced provisions of the already existing Intra-company Transfer visa, there has been little uptake of GBM visas amongst UK sponsors with the following grants of leave for main applicants in 2022 Q4:

• Senior or Specialist Worker visa – 4,667
• Service Supplier visa – 3
• Graduate Trainee visa – 86
• UK Expansion Worker visa – 28
• Secondment Worker visa – 3

Whilst these routes offer valuable options for sponsors that have unique circumstances in which the Skilled Worker route is not an option, low grant numbers, in combination with an increase in sponsorship applications for long-term work visas, demonstrate the GBM route has not amounted to demonstrable changes in the Points Based System.

New personal immigration routes

Over the past year, the Home Office has introduced several new routes for personal immigration, including the Graduate visa for eligible graduates of British universities and the High Potential Individual (HPI) visa for graduates of top-ranked universities worldwide. The former has proved more successful and comes because of campaigning by universities and graduates for years. In 2022, these two routes resulted in the following grants of leave for main applicants:

• Graduate visa – 72,893
• High Potential Individual visa – 1,342

The Home Office has come under criticism for the restrictive conditions and eligibility criteria required of HPI visa applicants, indicated by low application and grant numbers. Conversely, the Graduate visa has provided a viable option for recent graduates to establish careers and build a life in the UK.

Increased uptake of sponsorship

As a result of the end of EU free movement and increased emphasis on the Skilled Worker route, UK businesses have sharply increased the uptake of sponsor licences. Since 2019, the number of organisations on the register of sponsors has risen by the following numbers:

• 2019 – 30,730
• 2020 – 32,264
• 2021 – 31,617
• 2022 – 56,129

Most sponsoring organisations hold a licence to employ Skilled Worker migrants – this is in line with general labour and immigration trends following the UK withdrawal from the EU and post-COVID-19 pandemic global mobility developments.

Humanitarian routes and asylum

The war in Ukraine, political unrest in Hong Kong and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan have required the Home Office to act alongside other countries. However, unlike its counterparts, the UK Government has continued to opt for creating three ‘bespoke humanitarian schemes’ as an alternative to asylum claims. The following grants of leave for main applicants and dependants were made throughout 2022:

• Ukraine Family Scheme – 61,786
• Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) – 146,603
• Ukraine Extension Scheme – 15,159
• British National (Overseas) route – 153,708
• Pathway 1 of the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – 22
• Pathway 2 of the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) – 468
• Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) – 4,094
• Refugee permission – 14,275 (main applicants only)

The Home Office has indicated that it intends to emphasise humanitarian routes in the coming years, though no specific countries or nationalities have been officially noted as those that would benefit from such schemes. Additionally, the recently announced Illegal Migration Bill could result in the inadmissibility of almost all asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via irregular means and drastically decrease future numbers of asylum seekers and, subsequently, successful refugee permission grants.

Conclusion

The UK immigration sector faces new challenges and opportunities alike compared to 2019. Throughout the past three years, global travel restrictions deterred migration by those who may otherwise consider relocation. However, immigration statistics in 2022 show that economic migration trends nearly doubled compared to pre-pandemic numbers, with no signs of slowing down for the foreseeable future.

Written by Hannah Berkeley and Phoebe Warren.

Get in touch

To learn more about forthcoming changes to UK immigration law, see our website, contact your assigned LDI lawyer or email enquiries@lauradevine.com.